JEANS & GENES

Publication of The Rockdale County Genealogical Society

August, 2008

Library to Close

TEMPORARY CLOSING of the NANCY GUINN LIBRARY BUILDING
AUGUST 3-17, 2008

The Library will be closed August 3rd through August 17th while staff
members move all library services to the lower level of the building.
Construction crews will begin work on the upper level in September.

The Library will re-open on Monday, August 18th. Patrons will enter
on the lower level at the back of the building. Open hours and most
services will resume as usual. However, the meeting and conference
rooms will not be available until construction is finished.

Checked out books and other items will not be due back while the Library
is closed. Fines will not accumulate during this time. Please keep
your items and return them any day between August 18th and September
2nd.

We look forward to welcoming you to the temporary quarters of the
Nancy Guinn Library. The stafl will assist you in finding your way
around.

Ed: The Rockdale Genealogical Society will continue to meet at the
Mormon Church indefinitely until such time as the library becomes
available. Research materials are unavailable pending notification
from the library.

Discussion of On-Line Services

It seems that Altavista is much better than Google for genealogical
searches.

A distant cousin is organizing a GROWDEN family reunion, and I have
a GROWDEN family web page, and was trying to see what there was on
the family on the web.

I entered “Growden family Growdon” (both spellings are used) in both
Google and Altavista (http://www.altavista.com) and Altavista returned
far more relevant results on the first page. My page dedicated to
Growden family history did not show up on the first couple of Google
pages at all, but it was the first one on Altavista. It also appeared
on the first page on Dogpile (http://www.dogpile.com).

“Google is your friend” has become something of a cliche in genealogy
newsgroups, but it is worth remembering that it is not the only search
engine, and for genealogical purposes it is not even the best.
-- Steve Hayes E-mail: hayesmstw@hotmail.com (see web page if it doesn’t
work) Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/famhist1.htm http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7783/

Altavista, it came up with a page of relevant search results.
On Google that particular page still hadn’t come up after 17 pages.
There were quite a lot of pages dealing with papers by a neurologist
Dr Growdon who referred to the family history of his patients and
research subjects -- fair enough. There was some stuff I could use,
even on page 16 and 17.

But many of the Google results came up with surname search sites that
didn’t have any useful information, but were just programmed to come
up when anyone was looking for a surname and genealogy. Some of them
say no, they don’t have any information on Growdon but search our
(pay per view) site for any other surnames you may be interested in.
That’s not useful information -- it’s commercial fluff. When Google
started 10 years ago it wasn’t like that - it was better than the
other search engines and produced more relevant results. That’s how
it got to be the leading search engine. But it’s lost its edge and
some of the others have caught up and passed it -- at least for delivering
genealogically relevant results.

WRT the test results, I personally have found no significant SUBJECTIVE
difference between Google and AltaVista. Both throw up commercial
links at the head of every page, followed by possibly relevant non-commercial
links. In either case there was a lot of cruft to wade through. That
doesn’t mean, of course, that there are no differences, just that
my quick’n’dirty test found none that I felt to be significant.

Scientific Ol’ Bob

Letter to Susanne

Dear Susanne,

We really had a good time at the Rice Reunion. We want to thank you
for making the arrangements. The clubhouse at the complex was an excellent
place to have it.

I think I need to touch on the brief discussion that we had on researching
because I might have misled you. It is quite acceptable to receive
information from someone else who may have researched something before
you had a chance to do it. We do it all the time. Unfortunately, often
some of the information that that you may obtain is likely to be inaccurate.
There is only one answer to this. You must inquire about the source
of the information presented so that you can verify it yourself. Nothing
takes the place of putting your own eyeballs on the original documents
yourself.

Many times when you do this, you find that the interpretation of the
matter may have been open to question. The decision was made without
complete information or at least some corroborating data. Sometimes
you may think you have the right person only to later find that the
dates were wrong or some other such evidence.

Some people are happy to simply collect information that other people
have provided without testing the validity of it. For me, satisfaction
comes from knowing that the information is totally mine. I can vouch
for it. I know it is correct to the best of my ability. I spent considerable
time digging it up. Finding each scrap of information was a joyous
moment.

Who do you want to share your information with? Well, I think this
is a more difficult question now than it used to be. There is an effort
now to commercialize genealogy research. Data is posted here and there
on the internet without respect for who compiled it. I have seen where
some individuals were quite unhappy when some information which was
shared reappeared on the internet under another person’s name. There
is simply no way to be certain that the individual you are confiding
with will respect your wishes to keep your information from being
placed in the public domain. The best you can do is to ask that person
to refrain from passing the information on. What you do is inform
the person that this information is for their personal use and not
to be posted or passed on.

Anyway, I am happy that you are taking up the torch. I wish you much
success in your research.